Hansard

That is a very good question. It can be avoided in the future, and I regard leaving carcases in that way and any such practice as unacceptable. The way to resolve the issue is to ensure that Scottish Natural Heritage does what it is meant to do by statute: act in those circumstances, and not stand back as it has done. That is also an argument for much stronger statutory deer management.

I want to pay tribute to a number of people. I certainly pay tribute to the ministers. Aileen McLeod and Richard Lochhead have both been friends of mine over a period of time, and I hope that they still are friends of mine after the experience of the past nine months. That has sometimes been slightly fraught, but I pay tribute to both of them for their determination to get the bill into the form that it needed to be in.

I pay tribute to the clerks, the interest groups, the civil servants and those who have campaigned on the issue—to those who are in organised campaign groups, those who have spoken very loudly and led on the matter, and people in the press. In particular, I pay tribute to The National, which has taken the issue as one of enormous importance and driven it forward.

I pay tribute to those who have changed my thinking on the matter. I have not always felt as passionately about change in rural Scotland as I do now. A lot of that has been formed by the experience of being the member for Argyll and Bute and spending long evenings talking to people about the issues. Those long evenings have often been with the Rozga family at Kilmeny on Islay. They, Catriona Bell and a whole group of people on Islay developed my thinking about how change must come. There is still change to come.

I also pay tribute to the members of the committee. I have lived, eaten, breathed and occasionally slept land reform over the past nine-month period. I have done that with a group of people who have usually been excellent company. I will pick out three in particular.

I have known Dave Thompson since the 1970s, when we both worked for Comhairle nan Eilean Siar. He has been assiduous in his work on the issue and for his constituents just north of my constituency.

I have sat next to Alex Fergusson every Wednesday for the past year and a half, and we have found ourselves from time to time in complete agreement and from time to time in complete opposition. However, he has been very good company. He will be missed in the Parliament not just because he is good company but because he is wise and because the manner in which he argues with people is one that we should all endeavour to emulate.

The convener of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, Rob Gibson, has been a friend of mine for more than 30 years. I have always been fond of his company and I have enormous respect for him. That has grown in the past 18 months. He has been an exceptional convener of the committee and has steered the bill and other matters through with great ability, including the ability to draw people in and get the best from them. I am immensely grateful for the time that I have spent with him, and I shall not forget it.

Land reform is a work in progress. In every country, it has been approached differently. Scotland has particular difficulties. We now have to take the issue forward. We can certainly do that by consensus, but we also take it forward with a democratic mandate. I am sure that the parties that are seeking the renewal of their democratic mandate in the election will put arguments to the people of Scotland, but the people of Scotland want change. There is no doubt about that. That is not universal across the country, and the desire can change from place to place, but change is demanded. We have delivered substantial, good change today, but more is to come, particularly in the area of the right to buy.

We have made big steps forward in the bill, and everybody who has been involved should be pleased with that, but we are also redefining the nature of our relationship to land in Scotland. That has been a long time coming, and that is perhaps what we lost through two centuries of mismanagement and very often unforgettable and unforgivable cruelty to people who had to leave this country.

In finishing, let me draw attention to a historical coincidence. The tenant of Patrick Sellar’s farm is in the public gallery. A line connects us to the events of April 1816, when Patrick Sellar went on trial for practices that are now infamous. That led to an awful amount of suffering in Scotland. We are in the process of undoing some of those things and righting some of those wrongs. We are modernising our relationship to the land, and what a wonderful task that is.